28-Apr-2006 -- This is the first visit out of a 11-confluence-hunt along the 50 degree latitude line. Picture #9 gives an overview of the trip, which follows our previous hunt along the 50 degree line. Last year, we started from our home in Erlangen (near Nürnberg) in western direction, this year we headed off in the opposite direction. But instead of trying to visit as many points as quickly as possible, as we did last time with 10 visits in one day, we this time hunted confluences in a more moderate speed.

I grew up in Wiesbaden, a city which also lies at the 50°N line. So my special interest is to see what is going on in the world along ‘my’ latitude. May be, if we continue steadily, we visit all confluences all the way to China one day.

From our hometown, we had an early start (5:15 am) and headed off on the motorway A6. For directions we intended to use our new road navigation system, based on GPS. We prepared everything well: we uploaded the maps for the Czech Republic and Poland to another memory card. But as we came to the border and wanted to use these maps, the software required a password which is printed on the CD. Unfortunately, we didn’t bring the CD with us which meant that we had to use the conventional paper-based maps and figure out the best roads ourselves.

After following road no.198 for a while we turned right towards Branišov and parked our car between the villages Bezděkov and Nežichov. From there it took us half an hour to reach the point on food, always hiking upwards.

CP visit details:

Time at the CP: 8:49 a.m.

Driving time to get to the CP from home: 3 hours 8 minutes

Driving distance: 233 km

Distance of car parking: 847 m

Distance to a track: 150 m

Distance to a road: 840 m

Distance to houses: 800 m

Topography: hilly, on a steep grade

Minimal distance according to GPS: 0.45 m

Position accuracy at the CP: 8 m

GPS height: 721 m

Vegetation: deep fir forest.

Weather: light rain, overcast, 10° C (felt temperature)

Specialities: The grass was wet and our shoes get soaked with water. Fir Cones lying on the forest soil.

Description of the CP: In the western part of the Czech Republic near the German border. On a hill quite far from any roads, 150 m below is the next meadow. Not densely populated, between the small villages Branišov, Bezděkov and Nežichov. At the time of the visit, we didn’t see any locals on our way or in the villages.